


Revelations

by theauthor2010



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-16
Updated: 2011-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-15 17:02:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theauthor2010/pseuds/theauthor2010
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody knew Dave Karofsky's reasons for being so hateful, until it all came together for Puck. Dave Karofsky had been a witness the night he was raped at thirteen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nobody at McKinley High had expected Dave Karofsky to be gay or to be suddenly outed to the entire student body. Apparently, as far as the rumors went, Karofsky had come out to some of the guys on the football team in confidence and they had spread it around the school. It was shocking, unexpected and the cause of an insane amount of gossip.

The McKinley High glee club was not handling Karofsky’s outing very well. There were a variety of reactions but the general consensus among the club’s members seemed to be anger. “He makes me sick!” Rachel yelled out, standing up and waving her arms dramatically. The glee club had stayed after rehearsal, everyone too caught up in the sudden development and needing to talk about it. “How dare he! He harassed Kurt every-single-day, like being gay was some kind of disease and yet he was gay the whole entire time. He could have been there for Kurt and Kurt would have been there for him. They could have been allies.”

“She’s right,” Sam said. “I mean I know he’s being picked on like crazy now, but it’s kind of karma for all he’s done to us.”

“Boy’s gonna pay for what he’s done.” Santana’s bitchy, harsh comments usually received some eye-rolling or mutters from the other members of the club, but this time they generally seemed to agree.

“You can’t help wonder where the boy’s self-loathing came from,” Mercedes piped up, softly. “I mean, I get that it’s hard to be gay in a place like Lima, but he really hurt my boy and apparently his parents aren’t even homophobes or anything. How can you hurt another gay person, when you’re gay yourself?”

“Yeah, why hate gay people so much?” Brittany asked softly, vacantly. “I love gay people. They’re like – the awesomest!”

Puck got up and walked out of the room. He knew that everyone probably thought he was going to go tear Karofsky a new one for hurting Kurt, when he and Kurt were more similar than anything, but nothing was further than the truth.

In that moment, sitting in the choir room with the livid glee club, Puck knew:

Dave Karofsky had been there the night that he was raped.

That would definitely warp your perception of the queers, if your gay uncle raped a kid and you were watching. He knew that Karofsky was there. He had always known that someone was there. Puck found Karofsky pretty fast. He was pretty badass like that. He knew where depressed people went. The guy was sitting outside on the top of the bleachers, looking like he was ready to jump off. Puck climbed the bleachers two at a time and then glanced at the boy from the side. “You better not be thinking of offing yourself,” Puck said, firmly, “because it’s not cool. I’ve wanted to before but it sure as fuck isn’t the answer.”

“If you wanna gloat go for it,” Dave mumbled, barely looking at him. “The giant homophobe is a fag. It’s so funny and just…figures, right? I’ve heard it all, mostly from your stupid ass friends. Pathetic Karofsky, fucked around with Hummel because he wanted to fuck him. Go ahead, I already started for you.”

“I’m not here to gloat,” Puck said, taking a seat next to Karofsky and putting his feet on the level below his. He did not know how he was going to talk to Karofsky because he hadn’t even told his own mother what Jack Karofsky had done to him. Now he knew that all these years, Karofsky had seen what went down. It made him sick to his stomach. All these years this jackass had known and hadn’t said a thing. “I’m here to stick something in your pathetic little brain, Karofsky. Being gay is not wrong, it’s not a sin and it sure as fuck doesn’t make you a pedophile rapist.”

Puck watched the other boy’s face. It contorted as if he were truly in pain. He had been right. He had always wondered if Karofsky knew, if there was any miniscule chance that the boy he hated had been the witness he sort of figured existed, but now he knew that Karofsky had been there the entire time.

He could have spoken about it, he could have told Karofsky that he knew he was there, but instead Puck left Karofsky with that gem of wisdom and left the school, going to walk home. As he walked home, that entire ordeal started to fill his head yet again. His stomach twisted and he closed his eyes. He did not want to think about it at all. Not again.

He had been thirteen when he started his pool cleaning business. It was an easy way to make cash and flirt with hot moms. It had not even been a sexual thing until he was fifteen and some MILF decided that she wanted a little more than reaffirmation from a child that she was hot stuff. Of course, by the time he was fifteen he was already fucked in the head by what happened when he was thirteen.

He had offered to clean pool for Karofsky’s mother first. She had been nice, told him that they didn’t own a pool and ignored his blatant flirting. She was a good woman though and she wanted to help out the ambitious kid and recommended him to her wealthy brother-in-law Jack.

Hey, it wasn’t what Puck was used to but it was some money for scraping leaves out of a pool. He would take it.

Jack Karofsky was gay, obviously so. Puck didn’t have any issue with gay people though, as long as they didn’t hit on him. He started working on the pool, which was when the man started making moves.

“You looked so nice out there, sweetheart.”

It was creepy but Puck was a dumb kid who wouldn’t be creeped out of it was a woman hitting on him. He ignored him and blew it off. “Your pool isn't even dirty. Like, at all."

“Still, it needed some sprucing up. Let me go get you a drink honey.”

He had made Puck a glass of juice and all Puck remembered was that it tasted fruity and organic and gay people were weird…before he was gone.

When he woke up, he was lying face down on a bed of some kind. There was the weight of a body pressed against his back. His pants were down. “Good morning sweetheart,” the man said, drawling out the words, his lips pressed against Puck’s neck, right under his ear. “I don’t want you to struggle okay? It’ll make things hurt a lot worse.”

He got home just as he remembered how it felt to be raped, to be torn apart. He rushed into his house and brushed past his mother. He got home and fell to the bed, closing his eyes as he tried to take those images and rip them out of his head. It had hurt so much, inside and out. The man had fucked him brutally, calling him a “little slut” and “ridiculous whore.” He made Puck feel like he deserved it. He was screwing around, flirting with married women, he must be a whore.

When he finished, he told Puck to get out and if he told anyone then the whole world would know about his business’s sinister intentions.  
It hadn’t even been sexual yet, but Puck had been so scared that all the married men of Lima would find out that he was hitting on their wives, stroking their egos for a couple of bucks. He had never told a soul.

He had never realized it, but while he was lying there, sobbing on a stranger’s bed, raped and brutalized, someone had been watching him try to clean himself up and pull himself together. He had heard the noises, freaked out, but he had been on autopilot. Someone was watching him. It had been Jack Karofsky’s nephew, a gay young man who would never see other gay people the same again.


	2. Chapter 2

Puck had to admit that his first thought when he witnessed the vandalism was that it wasn’t very well done. Graffiti was scrawled across Dave Karofsky’s locker in wide, looping lettering. It was typical homophobic fair – things like ladyboy, fag and cocksucker written by the wonderfully eloquent bullies of William McKinley High School. “Dude, that was weak,” he said, looking at Karofsky, who looked as though he were ready to punch something in at any second.“You’d think they could do better than that.”

Okay, that probably wasn’t a good idea, as the kid looked absolutely crushed by what had been done to him. He was probably one of the strongest cases of a person who could dish harassment but couldn’t take it. “It does suck though,” Puck amended, deciding that would be better since he wanted to confront Karofsky about some serious stuff right now. He definitely wanted to be on the guy’s good side because this was about to get very uncomfortable.

“Go away Puckerman,” Karofsky said harshly and damn, the boy looked exhausted. His face had already thinned out and his eyes were hanging with sleeplessness. He looked angry, ready to kill, and as if he had tried to badly hide the fact that he had spent some of those sleepless nights crying. Puck knew all about hiding any display of emotion and how it could all burst out in dangerous and costly ways.

Hey, he had gone to juvie for one of those outbursts.

“Dude, I know the jackasses of Lima, Ohio tend to reinforce negative stereotypes and crap but not all gay people are bad.”

“I don’t need your life less Puckerman,” Dave said, turning around and looking ready to pounce. He was all wound up and ready to spring.

Puck risked it.

“Not all gay guys are your uncle, Karofsky.”

He watched the change in Karofsky’s eyes as the former bully realized what he was saying. The exhausted look in his deep brown eyes quickly turned from shock, to rage, to absolute horror. He could not believe what Puck was saying. He knew now that Puck knew that he knew. It was a horrible thing that happened that night and they shared it. They both shared the horror of what had been done and the fact that neither of them had said a thing about it.

“Walk with me.”

He gestured with the side of his head and Karofsky followed after him. “You were there, weren’t you?” he asked, evenly. “I didn’t realize it was you but I always had this really bad feeling that someone had seen what he’d done.”

“Did he…”

He didn’t let Karofsky use the word before he did. “Yeah, he raped me,” he said quickly, to combat the horrifying idea of someone else saying it first. “I get that the only gay man you ever knew personally was a pedophile rapist, Karofsky, and that’s gonna fuck with anyone’s head and how they see gay dudes. I never realized anyone was there but…it was easy to put two and two together, especially now that I’m not denying it ever happened.”

It was huge for him, of course, talking about the rape. He had never told anyone it happened and the first person he talked about it with openly was a bully and a jerk.

“He really did it,” Karofsky said low, and Puck could see that denial over the whole event was not his alone.

“Yeah, he really did it. It was really horrible and it really fucked me up for life. What I never realized though was that what that man did to me fucked me up and it fucked you up just as bad. I’ve learned one thing though, in all this time hiding it from anyone else. I learned that one sick man doesn’t make a whole group of people sick.”

“You really think I have such a problem with being a fucking queer because of the guy who ass raped you?”

Puck winced. He fought the urge to punch Karofsky in the face. Karofsky had known for four years and had never used it against him. He was a good person. He was just doing what Puck always did. He was trying to project anger and harshness to keep people from seeing how terrified he was. He had done that himself too many times to not recognize it.

“Why do you have a problem with it then?” he asked.

Puck knew very well that he had illustrated his own repressed homophobia many times in the years between the rape and now. He picked on people like Kurt Hummel, he called things “faggy” and he didn’t understand why anyone would do something so sick with their lives. He expressed his disgust, hate and shame but it wasn’t the gay that he hated. He hated the fact that he was violently raped.

He had actually never realized he had a problem with homophobia until he had a talk with one of Rachel’s dads, the start of his sophomore year when he went to her house. He was such a normal dude, quiet, passionate and real. He was just a dude, you know? Not a fag, not a queer, just a guy who was living with a husband and a daughter instead of the typical wife and a daughter.

It was at that point he realized how fucked up his mind was, yet again.

“Because it’s not right.”

“Says who Karofsky?” he asked quietly, breaking out of his own thoughts.

“It’s messed up,” Karofsky said, shoving him aside when Puck got too close. “It’s just messed up like your screwed up head.”

“Kurt’s not messed up,” he said, watching as his words struck a very painful chord with Karofsky. The boy froze up, his eyes widening and he looked like Puck was about to swallow him whole. Or maybe that was his fear ready to open up and swallow him whole. “He’s just a normal dude. He may be into girlier things or what the fuck ever, but he’s just a nice kid who got scared shitless and had to leave this place cause of you. Or what about Rachel, our little diva? She was raised by two men and they’re just normal dudes, you know?”

“Maybe queers are fine,” Dave said harshly. “But your head is messed up Puckerman, and if I were you, I’d be worrying about that rather than me.”

“Oh look,” said a voice from behind them. “Two cocksuckers having a lady-chat.”

“Shut up,” Puck said turning toward some of the hockey guys but then turning right back to Karofsky. “Let’s just talk later, maybe, okay? I get ya man.”

He could not express how much he got him.


	3. Chapter 3

“Can I ask you a question?”

Hesitantly, Dave approached his mother and tapped her on the shoulder. She was washing something in the sink, but she immediately turned off the water and looked at him seriously. She was always a lot easier to talk to than his father was, plus, Jack was her brother. This was not going to come out easily, none of this. “Dave?” she asked. “Honey, is something wrong? You look a little ill.”

He shook his head quickly, even though he knew that something was very wrong and he must have looked like shit. Memories were coming back and he felt absolutely sick to his stomach. “Mom, whatever happened to Uncle Jack?” he asked her, quietly. He needed to know this, as much as he didn’t want to know. His uncle had moved to New York some time after the incident, the incident which Dave had spent the better part of his teenage years trying to deny. He had not seen him since that moment and he never wanted to see him again. His face was already haunting Dave’s nightmares.

She tensed up, walking over to the cupboard and pulling out a few cups and plates. “Here, Davey put these on the table,” she said. He frowned and took the stack of dishes and laid out three place settings on the dining room table. It was obvious that his mother was trying to get around the topic. She did not want to talk about it, almost as much as he didn’t want to talk about.

“Mom?” he asked again, once the table was set. “Uncle Jack?”

“He was arrested a year or two ago in New York,” she said quietly, smiling uncomfortably. It was obvious that she did not want to tell him what his dear uncle was arrested for, though Dave could guess. “How’s school been hon?” she asked, changing the subject as affectively as she could.

No, no, she could not ask him that question right now. He could not take the question. He clenched his fists. He leaned over the table, chest heaving as he did so. “Mom, please…I can’t even…”

“What’s wrong honey?” she asked, approaching his side. He sunk down into one of the tableside chairs and his mother pulled another right up to him, sitting close. She put a hand on his shoulder and he felt like the worst son to ever exist. He really was the worst person to ever exist. He hated himself beyond belief and the bullying he was enduring was on top of his mind even more than Jack was.

“Mom…it’s getting out of control,” he whispered, finding that he was near whimpering, even though he was so much stronger than that. “I…I…they’re driving me crazy, all saying that I deserve it. I…I can’t take this anymore.”

What was he even ranting about? She didn’t know and he couldn’t stop, despite the fact that it made no sense. He had to tell her that he was gay, and then it would all come together.

“Mom, I’m…I gotta tell you something, please don’t hate me,” he whimpered. He could not imagine his mother ever hating him, but at the same time there was just this basic fear in him, this fear that his mother would find out he was gay and completely reject him. He wasn’t a little sissy boy, who everyone expected to be gay. He was six-two, two hundred pounds and an aggressive athlete. He was all man but he was gay. He was gay and he couldn’t keep his sexuality a secret anymore.

“I’m gay,” he whispered softly. “Everyone at school knows and they’re making my life a living hell, but I deserve it…I deserve it…I deserve it so much.”

He closed his eyes and though he knew the words weren’t true, he whimpered theme out anyway, “I’m gonna end up just like that goddamned pedo, aren’t I?” He looked up at his mother and breathed out the words. “I’m not like him mom, I’m gay but I’m not like him. I just like guys…I don’t wanna hurt people anymore…I don’t want to hurt anyone like I hurt Kurt. I’m not that kind of guy, not really.”

His mother was slowly processing everything that Dave realized he laid on her in one second. “David Paul Karofsky,” she said, using his full name, like she did when he was in trouble. “You’re still my baby boy. I don’t really understand the gay thing, but hey, I will pretty soon. I promise that I will. I didn’t understand it when Jack came out but…oh, oh god David, how did you know about Jack? He was sick, a bad man, but…he wasn’t arrested until after he moved far away from us, from you. You shouldn’t have known what kind of man he was. I never let anyone know outside of my side of the family…never…”

Dave looked up into his mother’s eyes and he knew that he had to tell. He had not told all those years ago and he had let Puckerman become just as screwed up as he was, if not more. “I didn’t tell you something horrible when I was a kid,” he whispered, tears falling even as he tried to keep them in. Crying absolutely sucked. His father, Pau, was one of those tough men-don’t-cry kind of guys and Dave still believed he shouldn’t be crying, even if it was needed. “I…I saw him do something…”

“David, he didn’t touch you did he? My brother was out as gay, yes, but he was also a very sick man…he was a…”

“He was a pedophile and a rapist,” Dave said, condemning him with fury. “He didn’t touch me, but I saw him rape someone when I was thirteen, Mom.”

Suddenly, it wasn’t about Dave Karofsky and his homosexuality, or his hang-ups anymore. It was about the child who was raped viciously at the age of thirteen, a rape that Dave had never reported and a boy he had let go on suffering. He was the reason that Puckerman was so messed up. This was all his fault.

“He raped him and I never told anyone, and I always hated myself for being like Uncle Jack. Now I just hate myself for letting him get away with it. He broke him into pieces and if I had manned up and said something, he wouldn’t be so messed up. I just didn’t want everyone to know that I was like him.”

His mother’s embrace was tight, strong. It was like, for a moment, she wasn’t a woman half his size. “Oh David, Davey, you’re not at all like Jack. No, no, you’re my baby. I’m so, so very sorry.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I realized earlier in the day that I accidentally referred to Karofsky’s uncle as both Jack Karofsky and his uncle on his mother’s side, which would of course, be incorrect. I’m going to play it off as Puck seeing him as a Karofsky, relating him to Dave. Sorry about that, my mistake.

When Puck decided to go to Kurt Hummel for help, Kurt looked at him like he was absolutely crazy. To Kurt’s credit, Puck had only given him a half-explanation of the situation, one that did not include telling him about the rape. It was completely confusing without that little detail.

The boy was still wearing his Dalton Academy uniform, having just arrived home from school. “Puck, I don’t really get what you want from me,” Kurt said, taking off his jacket and laying it over the end of one of the chairs in the kitchen. “Karofsky’s been outed and is being bullied, which is pretty sad, but really, it was to be expected. It’s going to hurt for awhile but he’s probably going to end up a better person when it’s all over.”

“No, I mean…”

Puck honestly didn’t know why he had gone to Kurt. He had known that Kurt was badly bullied, so he had thought that maybe Kurt had a clue, but he was slowly starting to realize it was stupid. Kurt didn’t know what to do next any more than he did. “Why do you think people become homophobes?” he asked, quietly, staring at the kitchen table.

Kurt took off his tie as well and then sat down, gesturing for Puck to sit too. “I don’t really know,” he said honestly. “I guess there can be various reasons. Some people are homophobic because they’re ignorant, or they were taught to be that way. I guess some people are afraid of things that they don’t understand or can’t relate to. Some people, like Karofsky, are pretty full of self-loathing for some reason. I…I can’t say that I’m an expert on that, just because I’m gay. What are you going on about?”

He hesitated.

“What if a gay kid, a pretty young gay kid, saw something really bad done by a gay man?” he asked, in a low voice. He tried to keep the memories from overpowering him but they were getting the best of him. “Do you think that could fuck the kid up for life?”

Kurt frowned, looking as though he was trying to wrap his head around that question. “What are you trying to say?” he asked softly.

Puck did not know why he felt so compelled to tell people about this. He had kept it in for four years. He had kept it under such a tight lock that nobody knew about it and now he was just letting it pour out of him like water. He let it flow.

“I was raped when I was a kid,” he mumbled, low, looking up into Kurt’s eyes, pleading. “I was raped by Karofsky’s gay uncle. I didn’t realize it until I started thinking about Karofsky and his homophobia but he – he was right there when his uncle did it. He saw it happen. He saw what happened to me.” It was so uncharacteristic but he was just babbling at Kurt, his eyes filling with tears that he’d never cried.

“Puck,” Kurt said, making him snap to attention right away. “You need to tell someone about the rape, as soon as possible.”

He looked at Kurt confused, trying to will his heart to stop beating so fast and not really understanding what the other teenager was telling him. “Tell someone?” he asked, blankly, as if he had never considered that before. He had, in fact, considered it many times in the last four years, but now it seemed to really feel like a case of too late to him. He had not told anyone when it happened, how could he tell now? “Kurt,” he mumbled. “It’s been four years and I never told anyone and neither did the kid who saw it happen.”

“It’s been four years and yet it’s still with you and with Karofsky.”

Kurt looked at him imploringly and Puck knew that he was right. He was still trapped in that moment, traumatized by it, even though he had been playing self-therapist for years and it was also the moment that had turned Dave Karofsky into a raging homophobe.

“I wanna help him so much,” Puck admitted, shaking his head. “I know it’s not my fault but I can’t help it dude. That night really turned him into a homophobe.”

“It’s not your fault,” Kurt said quickly, “and I highly doubt that one thing turned him into a homophobe. He was just traumatized…also, Puck, as much as I want to help Karofsky too, cause he witnessed a horrible, traumatic thing as a young kid, you went through it. Let’s focus on helping you out first.”

Puck swallowed and tried not to cry, because he had already cried in front of Kurt and it was kind of humiliating. He clenched his fists and swallowed, trying to keep the tears from coming in strong.

“I’m so sorry Kurt…” he said, the tears coming anyway. “I’m sorry for being a homophobic douche. I live here, people treated gay people like they were sick…and he was so sick, so sick, so I put two and two together. I said some awful, horrible things and did extra shit to you because you were gay and I’m so, so sorry, dude. He was just this little guy, not bigger than me or intimidating or anything and he still raped me and it just freaked me out so much and…and…”

Kurt hugged him, tightly. “It’s okay,” he mumbled. “It’s okay.”

“I just think of how much it messed me up,” Puck admitted. “Until I met Rachel’s dad I was such a fuckin’ homophobe. I can’t even imagine if I was a gay kid you know? You see this horrible dude who like, represents you and you think – am I that way too? Am I that kind of sicko?”

“We’ll help Karofsky,” Kurt mumbled. “And you, okay?”

“Okay,” he mumbled low.

“Do you trust your mother?” Kurt asked hesitantly. “Can you tell her about what happened to you?”

Puck thought about it for a minute. His mother was a very strong woman, a good mother, but she wasn’t the most stable character around. He knew that it would break her, if Puck told her that he was raped. She would also blame it for everything he’d done wrong, from the promiscuity to the pregnancy all the way to being in juvie.

“Yeah.”

“You should tell her.”

“She’s with Sarah today but, yeah, maybe after school tomorrow. I just…don’t wanna…”


	5. Chapter 5

Puck spent most of the next school day thinking about telling his mom. It was not going to be easy, at all, but maybe if he told her then he could actually start to heal. He could actually stop thinking about how it felt, the other man’s bigger body pressing down on his, all the heat of the contact that he didn’t want. He could stop dreaming about it at night. Maybe he could stop shoving down his pain, so that he didn’t have to let it out in bouts of fucking whoever would let him, doing whatever caused a scene, whatever brught the most attention.

Maybe he could be a better person if only he told his mother.

“Puckerman.”

Karofsky had definitely snuck up on him, because he had not seen the other boy coming. “Hi,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. Nothing could make Dave Karofsky look small, but he did appear as though he was trying to look as small as possible, just vanish into the crowded hallway. “I jus’…I wanted to let you know that I talked to my mom yesterday. I told her everything. I told her that I was – you know – and that everyone knew. I also told her what he did to you, well not to you specifically, but to someone.”

Puck froze up. Oh god. He was so not ready for this. He looked at Dave and shook his head from side to side. “No,” he said.

“Man, I…” Karofsky said, struggling with his words. “He was arrested a couple years ago. I don’t know if that’s like comforting or something, but he was.”

It was sort of comforting, Puck supposed, but it didn’t stop the fact that the man had been haunting his dreams for way too long. He shifted a little. “I’m gonna tell my mom. I went to Kurt, trying to figure out what I should do. I just…I’m so sorry that it screwed you up so bad. It’s kinda sick.”

“Dude, I’m not the problem,” Dave said firmly. “I just…I never told. It’s my fault you got messed up by this.”

“You were a kid.”

“So were you.”

Puck shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all good man,” he mumbled. “What matters right now is what’s here and now. Is it getting any better, the way that people are treating you? I know it must suck being the butt of everyone’s jokes.”

“Nah,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t freak about it though. I deserve it man, I deserve it like…so much, because of what went down with Hummel. It’s like that karma thing.”

Puck grinned a little bit. Dave was so intent on being some kind of martyr over this. “Shit went down really bad with Kurt, didn’t it?” he asked. “The moment I mentioned your name he looked at me like I was crazy.”

Dave shook his head. “Don’t even, okay? It’s bad but I’ve been doin’ my best to get em to shut up.”

“I’d offer you a place in glee but that may cause more drama, really. I know it stopped me from being so messed up and everything.”

“I’ll pass,” he said, but that did get a smile out of the reformed bully.

“Dude, you wanna head out to the football field or something?” Puck asked. “I have a ball on me. I just…I can’t think right now.”

Karofsky nodded. He and Puck walked outside and out of the suffocating halls of McKinley high school. Puck took the football out of his bag and threw the bag onto the grass, throwing the ball across the field and towards the other boy in a short pass. Dave picked it up when it hit the ground. “Weak dude,” he teased before backing off and tossing it back.

A few moments passed and Puck tossed the ball low. “Dude, were you okay with being gay when you were a kid?” he asked. “I mean, probably not okay, cause this is Lima and all, but you know what I mean.”

Dave caught the ball and held it in both hands, rolling it for a moment. “I wasn’t okay with it,” he mumbled. “I mean, Dad always said things like ‘what a queer,’ ‘don’t play like a fairy-boy’ and I knew it wouldn’t be easy to be gay, but it didn’t bother me much back then. I started liking guys, but I wasn’t gonna stop bein’ me you know? I’m not a fairy-boy or whatever. I knew my mom’s brother was gay and she was okay with him, so I kept an eye on him.”

“Is that why you were visiting him?”

Dave finally passed the ball back and he focused on that. He felt horrible. God, the kid had been using his uncle as an example of what a good gay guy was and how a regular old gay guy lived and functioned.

“Sorta yeah,” Dave mumbled. “It was like, I knew he was gay and people were still cool with him so I wanted to be around him more. Mom liked it and all, my being comfortable with her brother. I was pretty close to coming out when I saw…”

Puck inhaled. Fuck. He threw the ball hard. Dave didn’t mind the extra moment he had to take chasing it, either, because he absolutely darted after it. If Puck hadn’t been raped and if Dave had not witnessed it, how much would be different about their worlds?

“I gotta admit something,” he said, nodding towards the bleachers when Dave returned. They made their way towards them. “When I was talking to him about all of this, for advice, I told Kurt. I didn’t know who to ask for help, so I had to go to Kurt, to talk about this stuff. He told me that I need to tell someone, and since you told your mom and it’ll…it’ll get out sometime now, I think I’m gonna talk to my Ma.”

Dave paled at the mention of Kurt. Puck watched his face tense up and he could practically hear his racing heart. “You told Hummel everything?” he asked softly. “Oh.”

“Why is he such a trigger-point for you?” Puck asked, climbing to the top of the bleachers, where they had spoken before. “I know that it must’ve been hard being this repressed gay dude while Kurt was prancing around not caring who knew he was gay, and you really made his life shit but…”

“I kissed him, Puckerman.”

Puck looked up, and god, Dave looked close to tears. He clenched his fists up and sat down on the seat next to Puck’s with a thudding sound. “I kissed him,” he said. “I had been shoving him around for the longest time, because of what he was. He was this fucked up dude, but he was also what I wanted to be, proud of myself, okay with myself. I pushed and pushed and pushed until he finally got some balls and pushed back.”

Dave wiped his eyes. “I’d never hit him, you know? But I was in his face and he was yelling and I threatened and he kept pushing so I-I broke, dude. I did what I had wanted to do all that time. I wanted to kiss him; I wanted to show him what I kept hiding so I did it.”

“Damn.”

“He was so scared and pissed and I realized I couldn’t hide anymore. Fuck, I even t-tried to do it again, just cause I felt good for the first time in forever.”

“Dude, that wasn’t right.”

‘Don’t I know it,” he mumbled, low, looking up.

“You and Kurt should probably talk,” Puck mentioned quietly.

“Dude, he’d never even come near me after the shit I pulled. I was so scared he’d tell, I said dumb, horrible things…”

“I’ll arrange it,” Puck said, a frantic need to go home gripping his chest. He had to start this fixing itself. He had to make it start working. “Dude, I gotta go. I’m ditching. I gotta tell my mom.”

Dave looked at him like he understood. “I get you.”


	6. Chapter 6

Puck did not know what he was expecting to come from his mother when he walked into the house, but it was not immediate anger. It threw him off, of course, when he just wanted to get this out before he lost his nerve. He paused and looked at her, guilt flooding him almost instantly. Guilt was undoubtedly the worst emotion to exist, ever.

“Noah, what the hell are you doing home?” the woman asked, coming from the kitchen and staring at her son with a look of rage that was actually kind of intimidating, even coming from a five-foot-one Jewish woman with an attitude. “The last time I checked, you were supposed to be in school. I thought that you were planning on behaving from here on out. I’ve done everything in my power to keep you out of jail again, you know that? You’re never going to succeed if you’re not in school, where you’re supposed to be. Do you want to stay here all your life? Do you really want to be like him? Oh god, Noah, oh god.”

It was the eccentric rant he expected, and her ranting was about to turn to enraged Hebrew pretty fast, so he reached out and touched her arm. No time like the present. “Ma,” he said gently. “I know I shouldn’t have ditched but I really need to talk to you and if I waited until after school then Sarah would be home and I really don’t want her to hear this. She can’t hear this.”

That definitely caught her attention. She looked him in the eyes, squinting a little. “Noah, what on earth is wrong?”

“Just…sit down okay?” he said, gently guiding his mother towards the living room. She followed him and he sat her down.

He sat down across from her, on the floor, against the sofa she was sitting on. It reminded him of being a kid again, sitting at his mom’s knee, talking to her, telling her things. He used to have a really open relationship with his mother. Their relationship had suffered a lot since he became a teenager, but still, he really needed to tell her this. He needed things to be closer to how they were when he was seven and could tell his momma everything.

“Mom, something horrible happened to me when I was a little kid,” he said softly. “Well, not a little kid I guess, but I was thirteen. Do you remember when I started going around and cleaning people’s pools for the first time? I was only thirteen; it was the summer before I started at McKinley. I…cleaned this guy Jack’s pool…he…”

His mother was listening quietly and he couldn’t believe he was actually saying it. He spoke fast when those words, the actual words he had to say came out. The words, they shattered like glass the second they left his lips. “He – he drugged me and raped me, Ma.”

His mother froze. Their eyes met and she looked confused. “Are you – are you telling me the truth Noah?” she asked, quietly. He could already see the tears beginning to fill her eyes. Devastation crashed over her face and the entire expression just fell when he nodded. She was broken by this. He had driven his mother to completely break in seconds. “Noah, what do you mean raped?”

“He put something in my drink and next thing I knew…”

“When you were thirteen?” she yelled, practically screeching it out. “Thirteen! That’s four years ago! How come – how come – why didn’t I know? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me so I could do something about it and stop the horrible man who did it? Who was he? I don’t understand. What is going on?”

Puck stopped his mother’s line of questioning and took her by the hand, closing his larger hand around her smaller one. “Mom, I was thirteen. I was scared to death and he made me feel like I deserved it for all the shit I was doin’. Hell, maybe I did deserve it to some degree. I just couldn’t tell you. You were dealing with so much already. He was…he was…I don’t know. His name was Jack and he was this kid from school, Dave Karofsky, he was his uncle.”

“Jack…Jack Miller. Paul Karofsky married Christine Miller…she had a brother named Jack. Oh god that queer little, that, that freak raped my son. ”

“Okay, him then,” Puck mumbled, looking down then up at his mom. “I had to tell you, but goddamn it please don’t call him homophobic stuff mom. His nephew…he saw and it messed him up for life and I just can’t even imagine…” He was starting to panic, the emotions gripping him tightly.

“All of these years and I didn’t understand,” his mother whimpered, reaching out and touching him on the face. “All of these years and I didn’t understand why my little boy was so troubled. I blamed your father but god, this horrible thing happened to my son, my baby and I couldn’t do anything about it. How dare you not tell me! I’m your mother…”

“I’m so sorry, so sorry.”

“What can I do?” she asked, taking him up against her. He hugged himself to her knee, like he used to when he was scared as a little kid. He then crawled up onto the couch and his mother pulled him into her arms, holding tightly. “What can I do to make things better? What can I do as your mother? Oh god, what can I do?”

He swallowed deeply. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I need help Ma. I’m not gonna blame what he did to me for all the stupid shit I’ve done, but my head isn’t okay. I can’t forget. I can’t let go…”

He couldn’t help himself, he was crying against his mother’s shoulder. “I can’t help it Ma…I can’t help it. I just want to forget him. I want to make him go away.”

“We’re going to get you some help sweetie,” she whispered. “I’ll find a way. There’s help somewhere. I know it.”

He let his mom hold him, both breaking but both strong.


	7. Not leaving.

Puck was tired. His mother had several freakouts over the twenty-four hour period that occurred since he told her about the rape. He had to admit that telling his mother was very stressful and may have added anxiety to the overall situation, but at the same time it also added an undeniable amount of comfort. He had someone who was holding onto him, making sure that he was okay and being there for him. He didn’t care if it was unmasculine or weak or whatever, it sure made him feel better to have his mom on his side. It was something that he desperately needed long before this moment and now it was his.

It had been hard to convince her to let him leave the house to go to school, honestly, but he still had a lot of things that he needed to do before his mom contacted their insurance company about therapists and shit. He had to take care of the other people around him first.

After school, he and Dave Karofsky went to visit Kurt Hummel and make things right on their end.

Kurt was very hesitant. He could see the fear in the boy’s eyes as he and Dave walked into the coffee shop. They had agreed that a public place was probably best, because Burt Hummel would commit murder if he saw Kurt’s bully walk into his house and Kurt couldn’t have that. Kurt gripped his coffee cup and smiled. “Hi,” he said tensely.

“I should probably let you guys talk,” Puck mumbled.

“No,” Kurt and Dave said at once, in a way that made him almost chuckle, despite how he was feeling.

“Okay, not leaving,” he said slipping into a seat on the side of the small table. Kurt and Dave took the two ends.

The long drawn out silence made him want to puke. He leaned back against the chair and shut his while the other boys made sounds and tried but failed to start talking. “I’m gonna go get a drink,” he said. “If you two dudes aren’t talking by the time I get back. I’m gonna start talking and I know that’s not going to be good.”

He went and ordered at the front counter, continuously eyeing the two boys to see if any progress was being made.

He saw talking. He knew leaving for a moment was a good idea.

He came back with two cups, one for himself and one for Dave if he wanted it. He set the other down next to the other boy, returning in the middle of a long rant.

“…and I know that I never realized how bad it could be, but now I know. Everyone is determined to make my life as miserable as possible and all because I got outed as gay and it’s stupid because being gay doesn’t make anyone different at all…”

He looked into his coffee cup, because this was all too personal for him to just be a part of.

“I really just wanted to come out but I was so scared Kurt, I – I saw gay people as this gigantic walking threat, which I knew, like on the surface, wasn’t right. I knew that gay dudes were just normal people and they weren’t like my uncle, messed up and shit but when everyone kept saying how horrible they were – I just got this feelin’ that they knew something I didn’t, that I was gonna lose my shit and do something horrible like he did and I did when I kissed you, I guess, didn’t I?”

Puck sunk low into his seat.

Kurt spoke up. “You’re not a rapist,” he said, firmly. That word really hurt and Puck practically inhaled the burning hot liquid inches from his face. “You’re not. The kiss hurt me, because it was my first kiss and yeah, you did take it against my will, which was the most horrible thing for me, but you have to stop seeing yourself as your uncle.”

“I’m just so sorry,” Dave mumbled, low, looking down at the table. “I didn’t want to be like him and I ended up being the closest I could be to him without actually…doing that. I just was so jealous of you, you know? You never were anything but proud. I understand that now. Pride is a good thing, especially when you got a lot to be proud of.”

“I accept your apology,” Kurt said. It was tense, but Puck had to look up out of his cup and smile at the way that Dave broke into a smile. For a kid that he had never once seen smiling, the dude had a pretty nice one. “I accept your apology and I am so glad that you came and talked to me.”

Dave looked at Puck and smiled again. “It wasn’t my doing.”

Kurt looked uncomfortable, but it seemed something was pressing on his brain, if his “hmms” and “unghs” indicated anything. “I…did what you witnessed really change you?” he asked, quietly. He seemed to know that the words were uncomfortable for everyone involved but he didn’t seem to be able to not say them.

Puck zoned out for a little, as Dave told Kurt earnestly the same things that he told Puck. He told Kurt about how witnessing the rape instantly warped his perception of gay people, just as he was preparing to come out to his family. He spoke about how enraged he felt and how he was trying his best to keep it under wraps. Puck just couldn’t hear this again.

He finished his coffee and walked over to the trash bin, where he threw the paper cup away. He sighed and took a deep breath. He had done well by Kurt and Dave but he had trouble just thinking about the moment his life had turned around and become this mass of undeniable suck.

“Puck,” Kurt said, calling him back over about fifteen minutes later. “You guys know that the pain you guys experienced really has bonded the two of you. I guess it’s also bonded me to you guys in that sort of weird way. You will get through this.”

Puck smiled. “Holding you up to that Hummel.”

He certainly hoped Kurt was right.


	8. Fairness.

“My son was raped! Doesn’t that mean anything to you money hungry bastards?”

Melinda Puckerman hung up the phone when the insurance company representative told her in technical terms that no, it did not mean anything to them. She was not going to be able to get Noah the help he so badly needed because nobody cared.

Her family’s medical insurance simply would not cover the mental health services that her son needed and she did not have the money to supplement his needs at all. She did not know what to do. She worked three days a week, 9-5 as a school nurse at Hawthorne Elementary and two 4-10 as a receptionist for a Belle’s Beauty Salon. She did everything she could for her two children but it still wasn’t enough.

It would never be enough. She had been struggling to keep her children safe and happy for years and it never seemed to be enough. Her husband had left her with bills, failed at child support and was never there. It would never be okay. Her family would never be okay and now her son was looking at her with large, undoubtedly disappointed eyes that he hid behind the mask of who he had become.

“We’ll figure it out,” she said, touching her son’s hand.

Puck nodded, slowly. “I know we will, Ma,” he mumbled, quietly. “It’s alright. I’ve made it this far, I’m not gonna crumble if we can’t afford for some shrink to psychoanalyze me.” He looked down at the floor and then touched his mother’s hand. “I did a horrible job with the court-mandated therapy when I was in juvie too, anyway. I just don’t do shrinks. We’ll be okay, yeah?”

“Of course,” she said, knowing that he was hiding his needs. “I’m so sorry Noah. If your father wasn’t such a deadbeat, I could afford to just pay the damned shrinks and not jump through sixty hoops for the insurance company to give a damn or pay attention to me. It’s all his fault. He ruined us, he ruined me.”

He leaned over and hugged her, tightly. She just sunk against him.

Puck knew that it wasn’t fair, what his father had put his mother through. He had destroyed a good, strong woman and brought her down to her knees. She was so amazing and she did not deserve half of the things she had been plagued by. Puck felt a huge rush of guilt when he realized how much he was adding to her pain now, just by having told her. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I want to see that woman,” she snapped. “I want to see her and I want to tell her what her brother did to my son, ruined his life. That little fag…”

“Mom, please!” Puck yelled, when she used that word again. “I know that Dave’s mom is really trying her best to help him out and she had nothing to do with her brother. She isn’t any more responsible for her brother than you are for Dad’s stupid shit, you know?”

She looked up at him. “I still want to see her. I knew her all through high school and I deserve an explanation from her. I deserve something.”

“I do agree that you should talk to Mrs. Karofsky,” Puck said honestly. He knew from what he got from Dave that his mother was suffering a lot for this and he felt that they could really make a bond. His mother really needed someone to understand her as much as Puck needed someone to understand him. Maybe he was way off base but good things could come from that meeting. He didn’t know that it would go well, but maybe it could give his mother some peace. She deserved peace more than she deserved anything. “Would it make you feel better if I talked to Dave at school and asked him about arranging a meeting with his mom?”

She nodded, slowly. “Yes please, Noah.”

He hugged her and looked at the wall clock. “I’m gonna be late if I don’t go,” he said. “Don’t feel guilty mom, please. Have a good day.”

He hoped that his mother had a good day that day. His was pretty much uneventful. He went to class; he did what he was supposed to. He had really become the model student in the past week or two, not having any desire to fall out of the mold of a good kid. He almost felt as though he could lay down the mask for the first time in his life. He had nothing to defend himself against and everything was just bared out.

He did find Dave after their shared fourth period class.

“Hey,” he said, leaning up against one of the lockers. “My mom, you know, she wants to talk to your mom. I know that would probably be the biggest disaster in the whole wide world, because she keeps spewing out this horrible, hateful stuff but at the same time I kind of think that it would help her find peace with all of this.”

Dave looked him over, as if he were considering that for a moment. “It’s dangerous,” he said, “but I think it could help my mom too. I’d agree to it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah man,” he said. “I’ll even arrange it.”

Puck was a little bit surprised by that. “You doing okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Dave said, leading him over to the side. Puck was glad that it was his lunch period because he was tired of overthinking himself. Once they were in private, Dave looked at him with these big, sincere eyes and muttered out what he had to say. “Dude, thank you so much for taking me to go talk to him, to Kurt, it’s just changed everything. Well, maybe not on the outside but it’s done a lot of change inside and all…”

The rambling was kind of uncharacteristic of Dave, but Puck realized that the other kid was holding up as much of a mask as he was, if not more. “I never thought I’d get to just apologize for all that shit. It doesn’t even matter if he ever really forgives me, it just…it just had to come out, so thank you.”

Puck nodded. “No problem dude.” He reached into his bag and took out a notebook. He wrote something down, ripped it out and handed it to Dave. “Please, just, dude, call me when you figure something out, okay?”

“Gotcha.”


	9. Bonds

“How the hell does a woman not know that she’s living under the same roof as a rapist? He raped my boy. He took my little boy’s innocence and ruined his life. Noah fathered a child last year, do you know that? Now I know that it came from his hyped up sense of masculinity that he needed to combat the loss of his father and some perverted little queer raping him. I can’t even pay to get Noah help, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do Christine? You tell me what I’m supposed to do!”

Melinda did not mean to launch herself at Christine Karofsky the moment that they met in the other woman’s study. Still, she could not help herself, as she started ranting about the man that raped her son. She could not believe that this woman had been the sister of a child rapist without even knowing it. How could someone live with someone like that all of their life and not know what he was?

To her surprise, Christine did not object as she started ranting. She broke down when she finished because Christine stayed calm and let her reach the end of her rant.

“I didn’t mean…” Melinda moaned.

“I know you didn’t,” Christine said softly, reaching out and touching her hand. “You didn’t mean a word you were saying but at the same time you needed to vent. It feels good, doesn’t it?”

Melinda started crying, sinking down into one of the soft padded chairs that Christine had littering the room. Christine sat down in the one across from hers and pulled it a little closer, so that they were face to face. “I know how good it feels to let go and just vent. I did the same thing the night that they arrested my baby brother. I screamed and tore down a couple of walls, just making sure that Dave and Paul weren’t listening. Sometimes it’s all that a woman can do when her world is suddenly turned upside down and she’s feeling a little helpless. I locked myself in here a couple nights ago when Dave told me that he witnessed a rape when he was a little kid and never told a soul.”

Melinda wanted to reply to some of the things that Christine was saying. She was living in this beautiful house with a husband who still loved her and probably knew absolutely nothing about the struggles she took to keep her son and daughter safe as she possibly could, but still, she had to take what comfort she could and if Christine Karofsky was the one to give it, so be it. She looked up and whispered, “Why didn’t your son tell anyone?”

“My son’s gay,” Christine said firmly. “I can’t even imagine what he was going through, a young man just coming into his sexuality to find that his gay uncle, who at that time had been a fixture in his life, was really a bad man.”

She had to admit that she understood that. She didn’t get the whole gay thing, but she knew that Burt Hummel’s little boy down the street was gay. It must’ve been a hell of a trip, being gay in an old fashioned town like Lima. She did pity the boy to a degree.

“I can’t help Noah,” she admitted out loud. She hated the way that the words sounded on her tongue. She was helpless. She could not help her son even begin to heal from the wounds that for years she didn’t know he had. “What can I do? The insurance won’t pay for him to get therapy or anything and I know Noah would refuse to go to a support group or anything. What do I do? I just have no idea at all.”

Catherine looked at her with sympathy. “If it wasn’t for Paul’s job, I would have had the same issues,” she said gently. She reached down onto the table and wrote something on the pad of paper sitting there. “This is my therapist’s number. Dave has just started seeing her. If you take Noah to her, then I will pay the bills, alright?”

Melinda was never able to take charity. “I can’t accept that.”

“I want to help,” the woman insisted. “I never knew the damage done so I couldn’t help, but now I feel that I can.”

She looked at the neatly scrawled phone number. “Is the therapist helping him heal?” she asked softly.

Catherine nodded. “Oh yes,” she said. “I can see Dave opening up but sometimes I think that’s as much of the therapist’s doing as it is your son’s.”

“My son?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Catherine said. “He’s still hesitant to really share what he’s going through with me but I know their friendship has done wonders for him. I even see him smiling now, something that I could never see.”

“I feel like I’ve ignored so much of what he was going through.”

The woman touched her hand and smiled weakly. “You and me both, honey,” she said softly. “I mean, my son was bullying people, hurting people and he was gay the whole time. I just…I just dropped the ball there. There was so much to do, so much to think of…”

“And never enough time,” Melinda filled in.

“Exactly,” she responded.

“You know, we used to spend time in high school,” Catherine said. “I think we can use our son’s bond as inspiration to form one of our own.”

“I agree with you.”

While the two mothers spoke, so did their sons, sitting in Dave's back yard.

“You look healthier,” Puck said, assessing Dave cautiously. He really did look different, his whole look brighter or something. “Or at least less like you’re ready to keel over at any second.”

“Thanks, sweet of you,” Dave said sarcastically, but he couldn’t look angry. It was true. He looked healthier, stronger and less sick to his stomach. He had let go of a load that was so heavy that he couldn’t bear it any more. Everything just felt better when he let go of that burden. Puck knew how he felt. He smiled a little as he spoke. “Telling someone and…Kurt forgiving me…”

Puck knew what he was trying to say.

“You look better when you smile,” he said, wincing at how cheesy that was. “Oh shut the hell up, it’s true.”

“Thanks.”

“So, you’re like all out and proud now,” Puck said, playing around to ease the corniness. “I think it’s time for you to get a boy, Karofsky.”

“Shut up,” Dave said, shaking his head. “Not ready for that, not by a long shot.”

“What kind of guy to you like?”

Dave shoved him but it was all goodnatured. It was coo


	10. Real friends.

Dave Karofsky was doing a lot better in some ways, but in some ways he wasn’t and Puck could see those ways as he walked down the halls of McKinley High School. He and Dave were becoming pretty close bros, even closer than he and Finn were back in the beginning and Dave didn’t have to say how he felt for Puck to feel it. Dave was there for him, Dave had his back and Dave even picked him up after horrible episodes of therapy that made him feel like he was going to cry.

The boy had his own issues though. Sometimes Puck would see him in the halls and his face would just be so completely defeated, a moment when the mask wasn’t up. He would look like he was about to cry.

It took a couple of days for Puck to figure it out, but the next Thursday he saw Dave cast one of those sad broken looks in the direction of Azimio and some of his former buddies from football.

Dave missed his friends.

He started to pay attention and other than the moments when the two of them hung out, Dave didn’t have friends anymore. It was fucking tragic, that was what it was and Puck knew what he had to do.

“I think that we need to ask Karofsky to join again,” he said during practice that afternoon. “He and Kurt have made good and he’s on our side. I think that it would be really good for him. Dude doesn’t have many friends and is an outcast like one of us.”

“No way,” Rachel said, immediately. He had expected her to be the first one to respond to him, being the queen of glee and all. “Kurt may be able to forgive and forget but some of us just can’t, Noah. He may be on the other side of the slushie cup but…I just don’t think that it’s a very good idea.”

“Dude, do you think that’s a good idea?”

He turned his head to look at Finn. “Yeah it’s a good idea,” he said. “Dude’s been there for me through a lot of stuff.”

“I do trust Puck’s judgment,” Finn said, surprising even Puck with that.

“Do you think David would accept an offer?” Mr. Schuester asked.

Puck turned to his teacher. “Totally,” he said. “Dude is so lonely. Have you guys seen the way that he looks at Azimio and the dudes he used to be friends with? It’s painful.”

“He’s hurt so many of us,” Tina mumbled.

“Yes,” Puck mumbled. “But so did I. C’mon guys, Artie asked me a couple months ago if I was gonna shove him down a flight of stairs. We don’t just take in the goodie-goodies here. We take in the people that make mistakes. Glee saved my life, you know that? After I was – after someone did something really bad to me when I was a kid, I…I almost lost it, but glee saved me.”

He couldn’t believe that he almost blurted that out.

Apparently, it worked though, because Mr. Schue was nodding and so was Rachel, slowly. “Yeah, okay Puck, let Dave know that we could really use someone like him in our ranks, if he chooses to do so.”

He smiled awkwardly. “Thanks. I gotta head out for one second.”

He quickly left the room. He could not believe that he had let so much emotion come out of him. He could not believe that he was so close to telling an entire room full of his friends that he was a victim.

Clunky footsteps indicated that he was being followed and he could bet on his life that it was Finn. “Dude,” he said, turning around. It was almost more annoying that it was Finn, because he was absolutely incapable of sharing something like this with Finn. Finn was his best friend and had been a part of his life since he was a little kid. He and Finn had barely repaired the part of their relationship that was irreparably broken. He and Finn had so much that they had to get past.

“What were you talking about back there? I mean, dude, it’s a little bit dramatic to say that glee saved your life. It undoubtedly changed mine but we spent most of our childhoods together. What on earth would you need saving from?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Finn put one of his big hands on Puck’s shoulder. “Yes, dude, I do.”

“I was assaulted and raped as a kid,” he said, using a pretty textbook definition. “You and I hung out and played video games the day after it happened, so no, you wouldn’t know what was going on at the time, Finn.”

He bit his bottom lip so hard he tasted blood there. What kind of sap was he becoming? He could not believe that he had just blurted that out.

Finn absolutely didn’t say a thing.

“Dude,” Puck said seriously. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve been spilling my guts out for days and days on this. It was a long time ago and I’m safe. I’m okay. I’m not going to go off myself any time soon and you guys are a big part of why. I needed it and so does Dave. I know that you guys are put off by his hypocrisy but honestly, the worst demons come from inside of you. Please go back inside.”

Finn surprisingly listened to him and turned around. “I’m here for you man,” he said before he left. The boy obeys him and goes back into the choir room.

Breathing deeply and still unable to handle the fact that he had just told another person about the rape, he headed to the locker room, hoping to find Dave. He was pretty sure he’d be there and he wanted to convey some type of good news.

He found him near the showers, all by himself, putting on his clothes.

“Hey dude,” he said.

“Hey.”

“What are you doing here all alone?” he asked.

“I get my stuff, change, do everything alone because I make people uncomfortable,” he admitted, shrugging a little bit.

Puck felt an insane amount of sadness that he didn’t know how to handle, so yeah, it was time to lay on the good news. “I talked to the other guys in glee today,” he said. “I told them that you could really use a place with us.”

He looked up, uncomfortable and with a sort of feigned disinterest. “Yeah?”

“They said it’d be cool.”


	11. Single strong unit.

Puck found it absolutely endearing just how frozen to the spot Dave was when he arrived in the choir room for his first rehearsal. The guy was a monster on the football field and had this unwavering aura of confidence when he walked down the hallways (okay, before he was outed) but that was all gone when you put him in a room full of performers who really weren’t fond of him. He absolutely appeared like he was going to crumble.

“Hey dude,” he said, breaking the silence and pulling Dave over towards a seat. “Glad you came. Schue’s always a little late so just chill for a sec. I know this isn’t easy but it will help you out a lot. It will do a lot of good.”

“What is it…what are they looking at?” he asked, gesturing to Tina and Mercedes, who were nervously bustling over some sheet music that was spread out between them.

“It’s one of the songs we’re going to be performing at Regionals in two weeks,” Puck said, handing him the music to take a look at it. “It’s actually really good. Rachel wrote it.”

“I should probably wait until after your competition thing,” he mumbled. “I’ll throw you off with my clunky…everything and it’s in two weeks. That’s not a lot of time to add someone else into the mix, right? You need time to practice and stuff.”

Finn leaned over the chair in the middle of Puck and Dave. He gave Puck a look that said he really wanted to talk more about what happened, but instead he comforted Dave’s worries. “Dude, don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’re constantly changing as a group and well, it’s always worked for us. If you’re not comfortable or ready you don’t have to but just work with everyone, talk, see how it all goes. I think that you could add some pretty awesome things to the group and Puck and I can coach you through the basic stuff.”

They did coach him through the basics to the best of their ability. Finn was kind of clunky too, as they ran through the choreography for the number in front of him. He cracked a small smile because it showed him that he wasn’t alone in being a little awkward some time. Puck and Finn sang the song for him and he hesitantly joined them, mumbling and humming and trying to get the lyrics right.

That was when the tiny fury that was Rachel Berry stomped over. “Oh for heaven’s sake, would you guys at least teach him how to do it right?”

He was overwhelmed and he thanked god, literally, when Mr. Schuester walked into the room. Will Schuester had always come off to him as a pretty nice teacher. He reached his hand out to everyone, which was a pretty big deal because if Dave knew one thing about the staff of McKinley high it was that they simply did not care about their students. You could die in a fire for all most of them cared.

“You guys are going to overwhelm the new member before he even starts working on a song,” he said, echoing exactly what Dave was thinking. “Everyone, I’m sure you all know Dave Karofsky, our newest member.”

He winced a little bit at the glares that inevitably came and looked at Puck. He mumbled out what he hoped was a pretty decent apology. He had been thinking about it an awful lot.

“I’m really sorry for all I ever did to you guys,” he said, rambling slightly. “I mean…especially the stuff that I did to your friend, but all of you. I never realized exactly how much it hurt, or, or maybe that’s wrong…maybe I did realize and didn’t care, but I didn’t know how much it hurt if you get what I mean. It was blind of me to do what I did and I just hated myself. I’m really sorry and…thankyouforthesecondchance.”

It wasn’t that hard, really, learning the routines that Rachel and Puck and even Mike and Tina stepped in and helped him work with. Mike even agreed to spend some time with him after school, making sure that he had all of the choreography down before Regionals. He was impressed at the way that they banded together and the way that most of them just seemed to really give a damn.

They cared.

They cared about someone who had hurt them.

When rehearsal ended, Dave felt a little bit empty inside. He knew that was absolutely stupid, because it had only been one rehearsal, but he had never felt as at home (while at school) as he did with New Directions. They were all unique kids but they all worked best as a single, very strong unit. It was something that he had never before experienced and it lifted a huge amount of weight off of his shoulders.

He took Puck aside after everyone else cleared out.

“Thank you so much dude,” he mumbled. “Thank you for giving me a chance. I woulda…I wouldn’t have been as…I would have been hesitant if it were the other way around, just knowing who I am.”

“Don’t worry about it man,” Puck said, waving his hand slightly. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re one of the good-guys now.”

“Maybe I don’t.”

“Nah I know you don’t.”

Dave hesitated and then leaned up close to Puck, mumbling something. It was something he had been thinking of doing for a few weeks now, but now he and Puck were a little bit stronger and could handle whatever came their way. It was now something that they could realistically do to help themselves heal. “I want to show you something,” he said softly. “It won’t be pretty and it might hurt a little but there’s something I think we both should go see. It would help you deal with…stuff.”

Puck didn’t hesitate. “Alright man, let’s go.”


	12. The Puckarofsky brohood

It didn’t take long for Puck to figure things out. He wasn’t dumb, though he knew some people would beg to differ on that. A few moments before they arrived at their destination Puck knew exactly where Dave was taking him. He stopped halfway down the street and looked at Dave with what he hoped were imploring, pleading eyes. He did not want to be here. He did not want to go here. He liked Dave, they were near bros now but he could not handle seeing this place without a mental breakdown and that was going to definitely stick a hole in the newfound friendship.

“Why are you taking me here?” he asked.

He and Dave were only half of a block away from the house that had once been owned by Dave’s uncle. Why would Dave think that it was a good idea to take him back there? His stomach twisted and he immediately had a full on flashback. He didn’t even know that people could have flashbacks. He had always assumed it was a cheesy movie device, but no, he could literally smell the chlorine from the pool and feel the anxious hands on his young body. He shuddered and tried to explain this to Dave.

“I can’t go back there. Why would you do this to me?”

“I know it seems crazy,” Dave said.

To Puck’s surprise, the other boy put a hand on his shoulder. He did not seem like a person who had ever had any experience with comforting, but he was trying his best to ease Puck’s fears. It was awkward and almost adorable because it was such an earnest attempt. He led Puck down the street and to the pretty large-sized house.

It didn’t look different in the slightest. It still had the slightly cracked blue paint on the roof that framed the paler blue exterior walls. It was twice the size of Puck’s family house and his thirteen year old self had been so convinced that this dude had the money. If someone had money like that, thirteen year old Noah Puckerman rationalized; he could deal with a gay dude checking him out.

“I know you’re freaked out dude but come to the back yard.”

They crossed around the house and Dave opened the gate a little bit so that Puck could see into the yard that surrounded the pool where he had played pool boy. He quickly took in a scene that was very different from the scene of the house where he was raped. The pool was covered for the season and had a child proof gate surrounding its entire perimeter. There were small child’s toys laid on the porch, right near the back door. He could see a swing set covered in frost and dirt from the season’s changes. It was obvious that Jack no longer occupied this house or had ownership of it. It belonged to what seemed to be a young family.

He couldn’t help snap at Dave. He knew that the other man was trying to comfort him but how the hell was this supposed to make him feel better?

“What the fuck is this for?” he asked Dave. “Did you think I would feel better seeing that a young couple with a baby took the house that once belonged to a rapist? What’s your game, Karofsky?”

The other boy flinched.

“I did some research on my uncle the other night,” he said. “He was arrested for sexually assaulting a teenage boy in New York, shortly after he moved from here to there, but the police got him before he could rape this kid. It was obvious that he was going to.”

“Lucky kid,” Puck snapped.

“You gotta admit, Puckerman, it’s kind of hopeful that he’s gone and going to be gone for a long time and the place where he caused us both so much pain is now a place of hope. I kind of did a little bit of stalking around here. Which I know is creepy, but trust me, it was for a reason. The kid looks to be about two and the family looks awesome.”

“A place of hope?” Puck asked, grinning at the cheesiness. The memories were starting to fade away. “I never knew you were such a girl, David.”

“It’s all the therapy,” Dave joked back.

“Therapy will turn anyone into a whiny girl,” Puck said, making it obvious that he was joking. Therapy was wreaking havoc on both of them, but they were both doing better because of it. He turned and looked at the tiny children’s toys. They reminded him of Beth and how bad it hurt when he first gave her up, but it also reminded him of the hope he had found when he saw Shelby holding her.

As much as giving up his daughter hurt, there was always some hope when it came to seeing a young child promised good things.

“Do you think we’re both going to be alright now?” he asked Dave.

He nodded; he was surprised, probably that Puck addressed him when he was so lost in thought. “I think we’re gonna make it,” he said. “We’re in high school. High school doesn’t last long at all and it sort of leads to other stuff, right?”

“You’ve come a long way from being obsessed with your image to this,” Puck joked.

“You and me both.”

“I’m really glad we became bros, dude,” Puck said, seriously, knowing that this was crappy and overemotional but he had to say it anyway. “If it had been under better circumstances, or whatever you wanna call it…”

“If it had been, it probably wouldn’t have happened.” Dave gave Puck a small smile and then nodded his head away from the yard. They really didn’t need to get caught trespassing on someone else’s property because that would be quite the story to tell. His face tensed up as he spoke. “You know I’m sorry for not telling someone what I saw, right?” he asked. “I mean, I know I’ve said it but…”

“You were thirteen, dude, I forgive you. I’m sorry I never realized what you saw at the same time, but the time for sorries is over. The time for the Puckarofsky brohood is on.”


End file.
